Goodbyes
by SupernaturallyEgocentric
Summary: Sam and Jessica say good-bye
1. Chapter 1

Jessica, heart breaking, watched her lover weep.

He lay on the bed, face buried in the pillow and sobbed until he could barely breathe; moaned, writhing, as the pain tore through him. His brother tried to hold him, comfort him, but Sam pushed him away and rose to stagger to the door.

Dean caught him there and the two struggled. Dean, determined not to let his brother leave; Sam, desperate to be alone with his agony.

Dean's strength won out and Sam collapsed to the floor, hands covering his face.

_Jessica, it's time to go._

Her face twisted with grief, she protested, "I can't leave him like this!"

"_There's nothing you can do for Sam now, Jessica," _said the Reaper, his face full of infinite compassion, infinite dispassion

She hitched in a shuddering breath.

"_He has his brother," _the Reaper went on. _"He will always have his brother. That will have to be enough."_

"No!" Jessica crouched down on the floor beside Sam, held tight in his brother's arms.

"Sam. _Sam_, please, don't." She stroked him, rained kisses onto his tear-ravaged face. "Oh, sweetheart, _don't_. It'll be okay."

She said it knowing it was a lie, it wouldn't be okay, never, _ever_, because she wouldn't be there to take care of him, and he _needed _her. His family didn't care, how could she leave him, Sam had _no one_, no one but her -

"It's okay, Sam. I've got you. I'm not going anywhere." Dean's face was stony, his eyes bright with unshed tears. "Hang on to me. Just hang on."

Puzzled, Jessica pulled back a step, waited, her eyes intent on the two brothers.

After a time, drained of tears, Sam lay still and exhausted.

Dean helped him to his feet, got him over to the bed.

Jessica watched as Dean forced a small glass of whiskey into Sam, laid him back on the pillow.

"Dean," Sam muttered, rousing himself.

"Go to sleep, Sammy."

"No, no, Dean -" Eyes wild, Sam struggled to sit up, grabbed his brother's arm. "Tomorrow, the funeral is tomorrow!"

"Sammy, no," Dean protested.

"I have to go, Dean," Sam insisted. "I have to be there for her. No matter what. Promise me, Dean. Promise." He stared up insistently into Dean's face. "Promise!"

Dean's shoulders slumped. "Okay, Sammy. Okay," he answered reluctantly. He pushed Sam back down, pulled the blanket up over him.

"Promise," Sam said faintly.

"I promise, Sam." He read the question in Sam's eyes. "Have I ever broken a promise to you, little brother?"

Sam shook his head.

"We'll go tomorrow, if that's what you want. We'll go." Dean reached out, touched his brother's cheek, pushed his long, dark hair back from his face.

"Try to get some sleep."

"Sleep!" Sam uttered a cracked and ugly sound that might have been a laugh. He turned his face into the pillow and groaned. _"God."_

_Jessica. You've said good-bye to your family. It's time to say good-bye to Sam._

"Please, not yet," Jessica whispered. "I'll come. I know I have to come. Please, give me just a few minutes more. I'll come."

She stood beside the bed, looking down at the man she had hoped to spend her life with, the man she wanted to have children with - the man she would love forever.

When she started talking, she didn't know if she was talking to herself, or the waiting Reaper. She supposed it didn't really matter.

"I remember the first time we met. Brady -" her mouth twisted bitterly - "Brady introduced us.

"I remember thinking that Sam was the most beautiful man I'd ever met."

"Within an hour, I knew he was also sweet and kind and gentle. And also - the _saddest _man I'd ever met."

She reached out, stroked his cheek. "He wouldn't talk about his family very much. He loved them, but - he thought he'd disappointed them."

"When we'd been together, oh, I don't know, about six months, he got really _really _drunk. He _never_ did that, but he - he locked himself in our bedroom and wouldn't come out. When I finally managed to get the door open -" her blue eyes were dark with remembering - "he was sitting on the floor, crying, so _drunk _. . ."

"He said things I didn't understand, things no one _could_. The one thing I did understand was that his father had told him that if he left home, he could _never _go back again."

"His _father_," Jessica said wonderingly. "How could a _father _say that to his own son? What could he have done to deserve that?" She looked at Dean bitterly. "How could _you _have let that happen?"

"You're his brother and he never heard from you, not until the night you came and took him away from me."

Dean lay down on the bed beside his brother. After a long moment, Sam turned to him and Dean wrapped his arms around him comfortingly.

Jessica sighed. It wasn't okay. It was very far from okay. But, as the Reaper had said, it would have to be - enough.

_Jessica. I will wait no longer._

She leaned over and kissed Sam slowly, lovingly. Then Jessica turned away from him forever, and walked to the Reaper.

"I'm ready."

As they started to fade from the room, she looked back at the brothers. "Don't let me down, Dean. Don't let _him _down."

"I'll be watching."

Sam did sleep. Dean kept watch. When Sam stirred and cried out in the night, his brother was there to comfort and soothe him back to sleep.

Whatever you need, brother. Whatever you need


	2. Chapter 2

It was a warm day, 70 degrees in the shade, but with a nice breeze; comfortable. The birds were singing, there were kids playing in a nearby park, the occasional barking dog and the muted roar of a lawnmower.

Typical California spring day.

A crappy day for a funeral.

Dean pulled the Impala into one of the last available spaces, parked and looked at his brother.

He'd tried to talk Sam out of coming to Jessica's funeral. The kid was bone white, exhausted and shaky as hell, and this wasn't going to help. He needed time and space to heal. He _didn't_ need to see Jessica's coffin going into the ground.

"You sure about this, Sammy?"

Eyes dark with pain, Sam nodded and and climbed clumsily out of the car, holding tight to the bouquet of wildflowers they'd bought on the way over. Dean came around the car to him and they joined the crowd of people walking quietly into the cemetery.

"Sam!"

A dark-haired, sweet-faced young woman, dressed in severe black and a tear-stained face, rushed up and threw her arms around him. "Oh, _Sam_."

"Dorrie," Sam whispered hoarsely.

"We've been so _worried_. None of us knew where to reach you."

White around the mouth, Sam tried to breathe past the pain in his chest, tried to deal.

"I've been staying with my brother. Dean, this is Dorrie, a friend of mine and -" he stumbled to a halt, unable to continue.

The girl managed a small smile. "Dean."

"Dorrie." Dean nodded a greeting, then gestured to the crowd trickling around them. "We should get going."

She looked at Sam, brow creased in a worried frown. "Would it be okay if - can I stand with you?"

Dean nodded and the three of them walked on, Dorrie falling in on Sam's other side, taking his arm as they approached the gravesite.

Keeping a firm hand on his brother's elbow, Dean steered him to an open place in the crowd, careful not to get too close to the chairs where Jessica's family was seated. He hoped none of them would see Sam in the crowd; he wasn't sure if his younger brother could handle that encounter.

The last of the approaching mourners filled in the area around the grave. At a nod from a tall, solemn man that Dean took to be the funeral director, a priest, impressive in a plain black robe, stepped forward.

"Sometimes things happen in life that make no sense," he began.

"Jessica was a beautiful, bright and loving young woman. At the beginning of what promised to be a happy and productive life, she was taken from us by a tragic and senseless accident."

The priest's voice was a dull drone in Sam's head. Standing beside his brother, Sam was consumed with rage, grief and pain.

Everywhere around him was evidence of his guilt. Jessica's weeping parents; her sister, shell-shocked and silent. Her friends and teachers. All grieving, all broken.

In front of him, Jess' picture sat on her coffin, nestled among the flowers - oh, God, her beautiful, sweet, smiling face. He could still feel her lips on his; the last kiss they would ever share.

_Oh, Jess._

Fire and blood. Her face through the flames.

She must have been so frightened.

A roaring filled his ears.

_I never should have left you. I should have known it was more than just a dream._

Desperate, he stretched out a hand. Dean took it, squeezed it hard.

The roaring receded. Dean's hand, warm and strong around his, drew him back from Jessica, the agony and terror in her eyes.

The priest finished and the crowd quietly echoed his amen, then started to disperse, most of them stopping to offer condolences to the family.

Dorrie raised up on tiptoe and kissed Sam's cheek. "Call me, Sam, if you need anything. And come back soon. We _miss_ you."

Speechless, he nodded and she moved away, joining a small group of friends a few yards away. Those he knew nodded sympathetically; none came to speak to him after Dorrie shook her head and drew them away.

"You ready, Sam?" Dean asked.

Sam looked down at the flowers her was still holding. "Give me a minute."

He stepped forward to the side of the coffin and laid his bouquet on top. Steeling himself, he looked at the picture, into the eyes of the girl he'd loved and lost.

A wave of grief crashed over him and he fought for control. He could feel Dean close beside him, steadying him.

Sam gathered himself. With a final silent good-bye, he turned to leave Jessica, forever. Then jolted to a halt, staring at the sad-faced woman standing before him.

Stricken, Sam stared at Jess' mother. He'd met her once before, liked her. In her forties, slim, with golden hair and her daughter's blue eyes, he knew she was exactly what her daughter would have been in another twenty years, had she lived.

He couldn't speak. He waited for her to ask him where he'd been when her daughter was dying, why he hadn't saved her. He waited for her to ask the one question he'd been asking himself since Jessica's death.

With her daughter dead, why was he still alive?

She saw all that in his face, and put a gentle hand on his arm.

"Sam. Sweetheart. It's not your fault."

"I wasn't there!" he protested, stunned, voice trembling.

"Neither was I," she answered, tears in her voice. "I wish to God I had been. But this wasn't my fault. And it wasn't yours either. You would have been there for her if you could."

Tears finally starting, shaking with grief, he swayed toward her and she took him into her arms. All of her grief was submerged in the need to comfort this young man; the boy her Jessica had loved.

"It's all right, Sam. You're going to be all right."


End file.
